Aloha for near the last time

We are now approx 250 miles from the finish line and hope to finish some time early Tuesday morning. The winds have lightened a little this afternoon and our average speed dropped a little. As of this morning's roll call we were even distance to the finish with Willow Wind who are 10 miles directly south of us. Our handicap adjusted lead over Wind Dancer has been reduced to only one-half hour. We have seen a couple of the faster boats the last few days in the distance, most sailing significantly different wind angles from us. We are sailing quite deep down-wind, a necessity when you have a boat with a maximum hull speed of around 8.5 knots and winds in the 15+ knot range. A number of the fleet have already finished, but there should still be a number of the fleet out on the water when we complete
our race. It would be cool if we merge paths and race Willow Wind to the
finish line.

We are exhausting our supply of fresh and frozen foods, but have plenty of dry food available for meals. There seems to be an endless supply of ham and cheese for sandwiches at lunch. It may be a while before I have another. I cooked "bacon butty's" for breakfast this morning. We have done very limited fishing and have not caught anything. The flying fish continue to jump onto the boat and they are rescued and returned to the ocean when possible. We have considered keeping one for fish bait if a good sized one pays us a visit. I would like to catch a fish to grill at our arrival party. John wants to prepare everyone a John's Special breakfast if we arrive at that time of the day.

We are now considering our approach down the Molakai Channel, round Coco Head to the finish line at Diamond Head. There is notoriously windy and rough water between the islands which has resulted in many boats being knocked over and/or dismasted in prior races. We are hopeful that our direction of approach will give us a relatively calm sail to the finish.

We would still prefer to finish during day-light hours but will keep pushing hard and see what happens. I am sure we will all become anxious to see our family and friends waiting for us in Waikiki over the upcoming hours. However, I think many of us are very content in our daily pattern of sailing without all the distractions of daily life at home.

Aloha for now

Crew of pipe Dream